Blessed Christmas

Christmas Day--it's a lovely, wonderful day where I am, surrounded by some of my family.  We opened gifts this morning after worship last evening.  For a moment here or there I had a few tears, but mostly I was enveloped in the joy of the Nativity Feast.  I am again grateful for being so formed by our worship and spiritual tradition that I can focus on Christ in Christmas even when some of the other elements (such as my changed family status) are difficult.  Christ is born today! 

If that were not so, if the Word had not become flesh, then Anne's death would be a truly monumental tragedy in the history of the world.  As it is, I know she gets to spend Christmas in the arms of Jesus, looking upon the beauty of the Incarnate One in the full joy of eternal life.  She gets to hear the angel songs in person rather than just through scripture..."Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all with whom God is pleased."  I am grateful for that gift of peace in my life today.

It is not that these days are absent my grief--far from it.  The body will insist on what the mind seeks to suppress.  I got a great gift from Mark and Dee, Jacob, Eric and Jared.  They gave me the full length body pillow I had wanted.  I want that to help me sleep better.  I spent so many years turned on my side with my arms wrapped around Anne for a least a few minutes each night.  That habit will be long is disappearing, if ever.  So I want to wrap my arms around something soft and cuddly to deal with that absence.

I opened the bag, pulled out the pillow and wrapped my arms around it.  The tears came immediately--not a gush by any means...just those tears of nostalgia and longing.  I could feel my arms around dearest Anne for at least a few moments.  So there was joy mingled with the sadnesss.  That response wasn't somehow tied to Christmas.  It was tied to Anne.  And the grief was in my arms at least as much as in my heart and mind...somatic memory.

So many have commented on how hard this holiday would be for me.  I have felt a bit guilty because for me that's not really been the case.  As a working pastor, I didn't spend much of Christmas with family: weeks of fevered preparation, several Christmas Eve services, usually a Christmas day service, and then a collapse into exhaustion that afternoon.  In between we opened presents and ate a little holiday food.  But I suspect that Steve and Greg are missing Mom more at Christmas than I.  We simply didn't have the habits of other families that I would miss all that much.  It's hard to miss what I didn't have.  We did our family times elsewhere on the calendar, and those times will be more difficult, I think. 

The paradox is that this has allowed me to feel the joy of Christmas more probably than many who are early in grief.

The tears come and go as do memories of life with Anne.  But on this Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, I feel gratitude and joy and hope...hope for Anne and all who have died in the Lord, and hope for a world in bondage to death if He had not come.  A blessed Christmas to all.